Current technology to produce reduced alcoholic beverages and alcohol free beverages as defined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division of the U.S. Treasury Department as not being wine or beer for tax purposes and the beverage has less than 0.5% alcohol content by volume. It is hereby understood that if this limit varies it is intended that the term "alcohol free" as used here shall vary accordingly. Systems in use today to produce reduced alcoholic beverages and alcohol free beer and wine vary in the industry as indicated herein.
Conventional commercial methods utilized to reduce alcohol in wines is by film evaporation, in beer by proprietary fermentation technology, and in distilled spirits by reverse osmosis systems. For instance, "Alcohol free" beer and wine may be produced by film evaporation and reverse osmosis technology.
Film evaporation briefly described falls into two general categories, falling film and single stage evaporation. In film evaporation, application of heat from steam at elevated pressures on one side of a heat transfer plate or tube type and the product feed to the other side of the plate or tube produces heat which is transferred through the plate or tube energizing the falling film as a result of the differential of the boiling point of the binary mixture of water and alcohol. The alcohol vapor product along with some water leaves the liquid phase and becomes vapor phase. The equilibrium of the vapor phase is a result of the temperature applied, contact time, percent alcohol of feed substrate and the vacuum applied to the system. The liquid phase contains the residual water, alcohol, non-volatiles and other organic compounds with boiling points higher than alcohol with insufficient time to vaporize during the contact time and temperatures available.
Agitated film evaporation is accomplished by applying mechanical agitation such as utilized in forced circulation evaporation units (multi-stage) and/or revolving cones within a unit. Spinning cone mechanisms provide for a thinner film layer, reduced contact time and enhanced phase separation as opposed to falling film and forced circulation types. The reduced contact time does not apply to the multistage forced circulation evaporation which is agitated film evaporation. These processes result in greater contact time and consequent flavor deterioration for heat sensitive substrates such as processed in the food and beverage industry.
In processes using one or more revolving cones or spinning cones, the phase separation occurs at the barrier metal between steam on one side and beverage on the other side. Vacuum may also be used in these systems to lower the boiling point required for separation. For heat sensitive alcohol processes, steam temperatures of about 250.degree. F. are usually regulated by a control valve to provide steam temperatures at about 150.degree. F. which are applied to the steam barrier side of the evaporation/distillation unit. The steam temperature is dependent on the steam pressure used and is consistent with the steam table references in thermodynamics. Therefore, there will be differences in the quality of the liquid phase product produced from heat sensitive products processed in spinning cone evaporation/distillation units as compared to the products processed in falling film evaporation, i.e., the spinning cone produces a product with less heat degradation and of better quality.
Alternative means of separating chemical constituents such as reverse osmosis require application of very high pressures to the beverage feed in the membrane system thereby creating a driving force across the membrane surface. This driving force is based on the porosity of the membrane. The process produces a retentate product which contains the high molecular weight organic compounds unable to pass through the membrane, including those indigenous in the fermentation such as acids, color compounds, and most of the higher alcohols forming a reduced alcohol concentrate product; and the permeate product which contains alcohol, water, and other low molecular weight organic compounds such as methyl alcohol, acetals, and aldehydes. This type of separation system is independent of a phase change.
The conventional methods currently available to produce a reduced alcohol and alcohol free wine or beer require a high capital investment and prohibits small producers such as micro breweries and small wineries from providing reduced alcohol products. In addition, conventional processing equipment requires extensive training for the operators and maintenance cost and energy consumption are high. Operating parameters for conventional separation equipment are limited due to the equipment design, i.e., feed rate must conform to the design criteria, start-up and shut-down are set by the desired product run involved. Sanitation of the equipment requires specific chemical agents for any of the existing systems after each operation of the equipment and their proper environmental disposal. All of the aforementioned systems require large capital investment and efficient operation is unresponsive to market shifts in demand.
With the exception of the reverse osmosis, the use of heat derived from steam supply through the barrier heat exchangers to the liquid film on the surface causes bubbles to form out of the film. As the bubble forms and burst, the change of state occurs relative to the boiling points of the binary mixture, i.e., the alcohol and water leave the surface based on their boiling point characteristics. Therefore, the surface area of the film is the limiting factor for the change of state required to accomplish phase separation based on boiling point at specific vacuum conditions. The present invention circumvents this precise limitation of surface area limited by the equipment area provided in existing equipment but does incorporate massive surface area for phase change, i.e., from liquid to vapor phase to provide instantaneous phase change as does the present invention.
The present Volatiles Separator and Concentrator, "VSC", invention relates to an apparatus and method for stripping volatiles from a feed stream, concentrating the volatiles in overhead vapors forming a condensate product, and producing a low percent alcohol concentrate product outlet stream as a residue or tails within a single modular unit and in the same unit operation. Moreover, the modular VSC unit provides a continuous system of reducing the alcohol content of wine, beer, distilled spirits by exposing the original beverage to low temperature processing in the VSC unit. Using low temperature and short residence times to expose the product to heat from a selected heat transfer medium provides a means to remove a selected liquid phase as a reduced alcohol beverage product and the vapor phase as an increased alcoholic product in seconds or fractions thereof. The VSC unit provides a means for minimizing degradation to the organoleptic properties of the substrate and provides protection for the color constituents from heat degradation, thereby maintaining the desired color concentration of the product.
The vapor phase product may be condensed for second and/or multiple stage processing to the desired alcohol strength. The high vacuum conditions from 27" mercury to 28.5" mercury short residence time prevents scorching and organoleptic degradation of the reduced alcohol beverage product. The process may be controlled to produce either reduced alcohol beverages or non-alcoholic beverages from wine, beer or matured distilled spirits. The VSC unit can be manufactured to scale so that small beverage producers can enter the market now open generally only to the major corporations with high capital investment requirements for systems now available. Moreover, the modular system can be manufactured to a higher capacity production depending on the scale of the operation required.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a volatile separator and concentrator for use with heat sensitive substrates containing flavor compounds and color compounds, as well as non heat sensitive binary mixtures.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a means of separating chemical constituents from heat sensitive products while eliminating or minimizing degradation of the vapor and liquid products.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a volatile separator and concentrator for use with or without vacuum.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a volatile separator and concentrator which minimizes the residence time to which heat sensitive feed substrates are subjected to heat.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a volatile separator and concentrator in a modular unit which may be connected together in a series to provide a process to further separate, protect, and concentrate selected volatile components, increase yield, and improve quality of the selected congeners.
It is yet another objective to utilize the volatile separator and concentrator of the present invention to separate and concentrate flavor constituents or congeners of heat sensitive products.
It is yet another objective to utilize the volatile separator and concentrator of the present invention to provide a means to improve the quality of reduced and alcohol-free beverages being produced for the market.
It is yet another objective to utilize the volatile separator and concentrator of the present invention to provide lower cost capital equipment for the manufacturers.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide a volatile separator and concentrator which requires no mechanical motion equipment other than pumps permitting stable high vacuum performance, and is simple to operate and automate.
It is yet another objective to utilize the volatile separator and concentrator of the present invention to provide an improved process for the manufacture of reduced alcohol beverage products.
It is another objective to provide a means for separating striping, and/or concentrating hazardous and polluting compounds from a feed substrate.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for fractional distillation of flavor components and recombination of the desired flavor congeners to enhance the flavor and organoleptic properties of the final condensate or concentrate product(s).
It is yet another objective to utilize the volatile separator and concentrator of the present invention to provide modular equipment and for use in processes requiring mobility from one location to another without limitation to times of harvest or seasons of the year.
It is yet another objective to utilize the volatile separator and concentrator of the present invention to provide reduced alcohol and alcohol free beverage products, to provide lower calorie identified beverages, to provide improved shelf life of the products produced on this process over existing conventional systems.